Fly, Fly Away
by lurker2209
Summary: A failed lead on Adler and the Music box returns to threaten Neal's u-boat treasure. Neal tries to keep one step ahead of the Nazi spy plane mystery, with no idea that it will overturn his life in a much more personal way. Can Neal face a past mistake or will he run from it? S2/S3 AU. Cannon relationships.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own White collar, though I will claim a few original characters that show up later.

I've been reading and writing fanfic off and on for years now. This is my first White Collar fic and the first thing I've published in ages, but I'm really having fun in this fandom. I have about six chapters written and ready if this story finds an audience.

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 1**

"Neal, we have a case," Peter doesn't come by June's to fetch Neal in the mornings anymore, not unless it's important. He comes by to chat, and Neal is still adjusting to the new rapport between them, to Peter knowing his history with Adler. So when Peter shows up at 7:15 with a file in hand, Neal reluctantly finishes his Italian roast and grabs his jacket without protest.

"What kind of case," he asks, following Peter down the back stairs from his apartment to the street.

"I'll fill you in on the way," Peter replies.

But Peter doesn't explain the case once they get to the Taurus. He's pre-occupied with Manhattan traffic. Or rather preoccupied with getting away from Manhattan traffic, Neal notes as they head into the Bronx.

"Where are we going?" Neal finally asks as they approach the Throngs Neck Bridge.

"The American Airpower Museum in Long Island."

"That's not exactly the Guggenheim."

"Three days ago, someone stole the radio from a Nazi spy plane. Made me think of those crates of china we took from Larson last month."

"This could lead us to Adler," Neal surmises.

"Or give us an idea of what he's after. The local police don't have much," Peter hands over the case file.

It's an understatement. The local police don't even know how the thief got in or out, although they have three security camera shots of someone in dark clothes with a ski-mask.

"Security footage looks like a woman," Neal observes, knowing that Peter has already seen it.

"Most likely," Peter agrees. If this is connected to the music box somehow, they both know who their best female suspect is. Neal hopes he hasn't betrayed too much by telling Peter everything.

He tries to enjoy the drive out to Long Island, the farthest he's been outside his radius in a while. It's hard to work up an appreciation for a drive through the suburbs, however. It's not his type of place and the museum they finally pull up at his not his sort of museum. For one thing, it has a parking lot.

Peter introduces himself and Neal to the Nassau County PD sergeant, who introduces the museum's Director. The Director's baseball cap proclaims him to be a Vietnam veteran. As they walk inside, Neal takes in the building. It's basically a large hangar, with various aircraft scattered throughout. Yellow painted lines suggest a path, with dioramas and memorabilia surrounding the planes. There are two display cases with WWII era equipment and uniforms that appears to be alarmed; otherwise the security seems minimal.

"You reported the theft yesterday?" Peter is asking.

"We did," the director replies. "Museum's closed Monday through Wednesday. Looks like she got in Sunday night."

"And none of the security systems were triggered? Door alarms, motion detectors?"

"Door alarm was set as usual. We don't have motion detectors. Birds," he waves up at the trusses in the hangar's ceiling.

"It looks like the thief cross-wired the alarm on the case," the sergeant offers, pointing out the bypassed wiring on the display case. "We didn't find any prints, hairs, or fibers."

Neal isn't even really offended by their lack of security. There's nothing in here worth stealing, except the antique planes. That would be a heist on an entirely different scale. He'd need a truck, or someone who could fly the planes out from the airstrip next door, assuming the targets were airworthy. You'd need forged FAA documents to get them out of the country… He shuts off the part of his brain that automatically plans heists and refocuses on how the thief got inside.

"Tell me about this radio," Peter asks the director. "Why would someone want to take it?"

"Well, I guess a collector might want it," the Director suggests. "It's from a Junkers 290, German reconnaissance plane."

"What kind of reconnaissance?" Neal asks, looking at the two images in the file. The radio is a blocky receiver about the size of a shoebox, with a vintage headset and microphone attached.

"Most of them worked with the U-boats, spotting allied convoys to target; later in the war the Germans had variations equipped with missiles or bombs."

"How did it end up here?" Peter asks.

"Allies captured a Ju 290 in Munich in '45. They flew it in the airshow at Wright Field until they had to scrap the plane. Private collector bought the radio at auction and donated it to the museum five years ago."

"I'd like the name of your donor," Peter asks.

"See what I can do." The director seems reluctant. Why would someone donate an item like this to the museum and steal it back? But the very fact of the theft suggests that it's worth more than it seems, to someone.

"And I'd like to see the security footage." Neal's noted the locations of the four security cameras. With the large planes and few cameras, there are plenty of blind spots in the hangar.

In the museum's office, Peter and the Director go back and forth about the privacy of the museum's donors and Peter's ability to return with a warrant. Neal runs through the security footage. The thief stuck to the blind spots and was only caught on camera three times. She appears in the corner of the frame of a camera on the south side once, shows up a few minutes later on a camera near the display case and then just her legs appear on a camera on the west wall. Neal spots a door in a blind spot on the south wall. He leaves the director in the office. There are scratch marks on the doorknob, but it's unlocked. The door leads to a standard janitorial closet with cleaning equipment.

Peter and the director emerge from the office and the director hands Peter a print-out.

"Your donor was William Jenkins. He was a long time member here who left the radio and some other memorabilia to the museum in his estate. "

"When does the cleaning company come in?" Neal asks.

"Um, Wednesdays."

"We cleared them," the sergeant speaks up. "That crew has an early morning gig at a department store Mondays. No one missed work."

"So, no one had a reason to look in the janitor's closet Sunday night." Neal concludes. It's starting to come together. "Your thief walked in with the other visitors, slipped into that closet using a blind spot and waited for everyone to leave. The time programmed on the cameras is accurate, the theft happened at 5 am?"

"Yeah," the director says, defensively.

"Why would a thief wait twelve hours in that closet?" Peter asks.

"I don't know. It's almost light then, someone walking by might have seen."

"Walking by where?" the sergeant asks. "We don't even know how she got out of the building."

Neal rethinks the blind spots, and then walks over to an emergency exit on the west wall. He opens the door and is not surprised when the alarm fails to sound. Outside the door, beyond a short fence, is the airstrip.

"She went out here. And she needed daylight to fly away."

"Well sure," the director nods. "A lot of pilots only fly under visual flight rules. A lot of small planes don't have equipment for instrument flights."

Peter and Neal drive around to the airstrip's tower and main hangar. The director told them to ask for Gary, who rents small planes by the hour and sells fuel.

"So," Peter begins, "can Alex fly a plane?"

"Not as far as I know," Neal thinks he's relieved that she's not involved in this.

Gary does recall a woman who flew in Sunday morning, before the air show, and flew out Monday morning right after dawn.

"She was blonde, greenest eyes you ever saw, real young looking," he recalls when asked to describe the woman.

"Did she use a credit card?" Peter asks.

"No, she paid for the fuel and the tie down fee in cash. She signed for that somewhere here."

After a minute, he hands a document to Peter. "Amy L." Peter reads, "Not much to go on." He calls Jones and Diana at the office and reads them the flight registration numbers.

"Amy L. Amelia," Neal smiles at the pun. "Most famous female pilot ever."

"So it's an alias," Peter sighs. Neal, for one, is relieved he won't be forced to look through databases of pilot licenses for blonde women named Amy L.

They learn that Gary has two security cameras, but the footage is taped over after forty-eight hours.

"Did she look anything like this woman?" Peter shows him a photo of Alex, just in case.

"Naw, she was blonde," Gary replies.

"She might have worn a wig," Peter offers, trying to get something out of him. Neal doesn't think sitting Gary down with a sketch artist is likely to be helpful. And 'greenest eyes you ever saw' sounds like colored contact lenses. She could be anyone.

"No, not even then. She was younger. A kid really. I was surprised she had that she had that custom Cessna Skyhawk. Fancy plane for a kid."

"How young can a pilot be?" Peter asks.

"Aw, you can get a solo license at fifteen, commercial at sixteen. Amy looked a year or two older than that, I'd say."

"Did you ask her about where she got the plane?" Neal wonders.

"Yeah, she said she inherited it," Gary says with a shrug.

"So," Peter recaps on the way home. "We're looking for a teenage thief who inherited a plane. Sound like anyone you've ever heard of?"

"No, it's a unique MO. I'll ask around." By this, he means he'll ask Mozzie. "Maybe someone's heard of Amelia the Heiress."

"Amelia Heiress, that's good, we have a nickname," Peter chuckles. "Hopefully she hasn't disappeared in the South Pacific. Maybe Diana will have found something with that flight registration.

At first it seems like Diana has made headway when they return. A search of FAA databases reveals that the plane is registered to a private operator upstate who rents small planes by the hour or by the day.

"Who rented it on Sunday?" Peter asks over the phone.

"Morning or afternoon?" the reply scuttles their lead. The plane was rented in the morning, returned around 1pm and rented out again from 2 to dusk.

"Amelia forged the registration," Neal concludes.

"And the numbers on the tail," Jones adds.

"So we've got a thief, a pilot and a forger," Peter tallies the woman's skills.

"We've got nothing," Diana counters, frustrated.

Ultimately, Diana is right. The Burmese diamond case pushes Amelia from the top of the priority list, but Diana assigns a probie to look into Jenkins. He doesn't find any connection with Adler or with Alex. Mozzie's contacts come up empty as well.

They will have to find Adler—and the answer the music boxes riddle—another way, Neal thinks, as he files away the case materials and evidence. And, of course, they do. And given the circumstances, Neal is all too happy to leave the file with the other cold cases.

A/N: Thanks for reading. To clarify the timeline, this chapter follows "Forging Bonds" in Season 2. The rest of the fic will be set in S3. The American Airpower Museum is an actual place on Long Island. I based some description on pictures and invented the rest. The Junkers Ju 290 was an actual German aircraft used in WWII. One was captured, brought to the US and scrapped, but all details of the radio are my own invention.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar.

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 2**

"You remember that Amelia Heiress case?" Peter asks one day, as Neal is finishing up the paperwork for the Roland case. Neal does, although he would rather not. First the manifest and now this loose end. It seems obvious now that Adler wanted the radio to find the sub, although they still have no idea how he did it.

"Yeah, I remember. Something turn up?" he asks casually. This could be bad. He knows Peter had agents check the radio thief's MO against Adler's known associates. They didn't come up with anyone, which means Amelia's still out there and who knows how much she knows.

"She struck again, or so it seems. Broke into a mansion in the Hamptons. This time she took 2 million in bearer bonds."

The Hamptons, that is Neal's kind of field trip. However, the one bright spot in this mess fades away when Peter announces that the local PD has brought the evidence to the FBI.

"Are we sure this is the same suspect?" Neal asks after an hour of examining the files. "The museum break-in was a solo job, here we have two suspects on the security camera at the back door. The museum job was clean, no evidence. These two thieves were spotted by a neighbor who called the police. The only thing they have in common is that the thieves came and went by plane and not even the same kind of plane!" He gestures towards the pontoons planes moored at the marina the thieves were tracked to.

"He has a point boss," Diana admits. "A lot of people can fly a plane."

"Not a lot of people break into the vacation home of an assistant US attorney," Peter counters. "Not a lot of people can crack that Amsec model safe in less than five minutes."

"No one can crack that safe in five minutes," Neal counters, a point he's made twice in the past hour.

"Just because you can't…" Peter needles, for the third time.

"I mean it. It's impossible," Neal insists. "It has to be an inside job." Neal cues up security footage from the back door. "Look at how the male suspect cracks the alarm system. He hooks that cable to the keypad, it flashes some numbers. But then he punches the numbers in manually."

"I looks like he's brute-forcing the password with his phone," Jones catches on, "but it might just be a show to cover the fact that he knows the pass code."

"Look at US attorney Well's family," Peter directs Diana.

"He has a daughter, age fifteen. She does not have a pilot's license." Diana adds. "There's also a nephew, Simon Allen. His father, Fredrick Allen worked at Lehman Brothers. The SEC would like to talk to him about some insider trading allegations, but he's been living in the Caribbean since 2008."

"He and his assistant US attorney brother in law are not on speaking terms," Peter adds.

"According to Wells," Jones throws in.

"What do we know about the son?" Peter redirects them.

"Finance major at Columbia. Nice off-campus apartment and a very good internship with JP Morgan for a kid who's going to be a sophomore in the fall." Diana pulls up the kids Facebook page, "Oh, and look, he used his uncle's house to throw a party a few weeks ago."

"Alright, Diana, I want you to look into everyone who was at that party," Peter starts throwing out orders. "Neal and I are going to talk to the kid. Jones, track down the plane. This could still be connected to the Amelia case.

They find Simon Allen outside JP Morgan's massive office complex.

"I think I'll wait in the car," Neal suggests. "Just in case."

"Fine, fine," Peter agrees.

He watches from the window as Peter approaches the kid. It's obvious that the young man is in a hurry, not eager to talk. Neal thinks there might be something evasive in his body language at one point, but it's hard to tell from a distance.

"Anything useful?" he asks when Peter returns.

"He knew the security pass code, everyone did. Claimed he didn't even know his uncle had a safe at the vacation house."

"And the night of the break-in, he was at a party?" Neal asks, recalling the police report.

"Yeah, but he gave me the exact same three friends he gave the police," Peter says. "You'd think more than three people would have seen him at a party."

"So he got his friends to alibi him and tried to make it look like a break-in, because his dad's running out of money in the Caribbean?" Neal asks. "Still doesn't explain the safe."

"I think we should see where this kid goes after work."

Diana calls while they grab lunch across the street. "I may have found a girl," she says over the phone. "There was one girl in all this party photos who wasn't tagged, didn't have a Facebook page. I chatted with a few kids from the party.

"Chatted?" Peter asks.

"Face book message. These kids don't actually talk on their phones. Ashley and Blair ID'd the mystery girl as Olivia Lawson. No one there really knew her. Ashley thought she was a friend of Brooke's from NYU, Brooke through she was a friend of Blair's, and so on."

"And NYU?" Neal asks.

"Doesn't have an Olivia Lawson that fits her description. I did dig up a police report. Arrest record for dealing drugs, no charges filed. Not much too it."

"Anything else?" Peter asks.

"Brooke thought Olivia was hooking up with Simon. They disappeared to the Master bedroom a couple of times."

"Where the safe is," Neal added. "She could have been cracking the combination by touch. With several hours, that's more than doable."

"Jones, you find anything?" Peter asks.

"Forged registration that traces to a rental, same as before," Jones reports. "I talked to a source who said it's possible to switch the landing gear on a plane like that for pontoons, but it takes about two days."

Peter instructs both Jones and Diana to dig into Simon Allen's phone records and Fredrick Allen's financials to see if anything can tie them to the theft.

Diana emails them the names of the arresting officers and a photo of Olivia. She's brunette, young and dodging away from the camera as if she's trying to get out of the picture. It's not a great shot, but there's something oddly familiar about her.

NYPD dispatch directs them to look for Officer Blythe in a trendy nightclub district near Wall Street, so Peter decides they should look into the arrest report, since Simon isn't leaving JP Morgan for a few hours at least.

"Olivia Lawson, Lawson," Blythe tries to remember. "Oh yeah, that was weird."

"Weird how?" Peter asks.

"Well, it was a scam," she replies.

"A scam?" Neal asks. He has a bad feeling about this.

"Yeah, we picked her up in one of these clubs selling pills. We were doing a sting and she sold me four doses of molly. Only when we get to the precinct, she says the pills aren't molly, they're cornstarch and sugar."

"And she was actually telling the truth?" Peter asks.

"Yeah, we did several field tests," Blythe confirms. "She told me she sold fake drugs who kids who were already too drunk or high to know the difference. We had to cut her loose."

"It's a good con," Neal observes.

"Until she gets a dissatisfied customer, or a real dealer gets territorial," Blythe counters. "I told her she was playing a dangerous game, but she just smirked at me. Kid like that either gets herself in trouble or moves on to some other scam, but what can you do?"

She confirms that the Olivia in the Face book picture is the same girl she arrested and moves on with her beat.

"So, son of a crooked stockbroker falls in with an up and coming thief and con artist?" Peter asks.

"Looks like it."

The stake-out is mostly boring and only slightly informative, in other words, typical. Simon leaves JP Morgan, stops at an ATM and withdraws the daily maximum. They follow him to his mother's house for dinner. When he returns to his apartment, he's carrying a small suitcase.

"He's going to run," Neal argues.

"Maybe. Or maybe he's going to another party in the Hamptons," Peter counters.

"They can't cash the bonds here. Not without us flagging the transaction. Whatever they're planning, we need to flush them out."

"What are you thinking?" Peter asks.

"They're kids. Simon Allen has never done anything like this before. He needs advice. Say, a friend of his father's."

"The assistant US attorney is not going to like this," Peter observes.

The morning after a stake-out dawns all too early, and since Peter decided to let two junior agents take over watching Simon's apartment around midnight, Neal doesn't have a good enough excuse to sleep in. Still, he's pleased to note the brief look of surprise on Peter's face when he arrives at the office ten minutes early. Usually he'd at least try to get away with being ten minutes late after a night like that.

Today, he needs to be here and pitch his plan before Peter and team come up with something else. He needs to take point on this because he has no idea how this connects back to Adler and the treasure and he needs to figure it out before Peter does.

By lunch, he's sold his plan. He's staying on-anklet, he's staying away from Wells, and Peter has reserved the right to pull the plug on this if it doesn't dig up anything in a day or two.

He stops by the loft to pick up some items he needs for his cover. Mozzie is waiting.

"Peter went for it. I'm going undercover, trying to make contact with the thieves."

"I don't like any of this. We still don't know what Adler did with that radio."

"We don't even know Adler got the radio. If this Olivia knows anything about the treasure, I'll know it before the FBI does."

"And then what do you do with her?" Mozzie asks.

"I let her get away, and make it look like it's not my fault," Neal suggests. He'll think of something if the time comes.

"We should be the ones getting away," Mozzie argues.

"Not yet," Neal counters. Mozzie walks over to the window, avoiding the argument they've already had. In agreement on that, if nothing else, Neal leaves for his appointment at JP Morgan.

Peter has a friend at the investment firm that owes him a favor; he looked up the division where Simon Allen is interning and scheduled George Devore for a 4:30 portfolio review.

On the way downstairs from the meeting, Neal makes a detour. He spots the kid leaving and office and catches the same elevator.

"Simon Allen, is that you?" he catches the kid's arm as they leave the elevator. This is not a conversation to have in a crowded box.

"I'm sorry?" the young man replies.

"I'm George Devore; I worked with your father."

"I see," Simon says, tersely.

"How is he?" Neal asks.

"I don't really know. Do you?" Right, this kid is not too fond of his father.

"Sadly, I haven't heard from him. I'm not exactly the safest person for him to call, given our business together."

"Right."

"Look, if there's anything I do to help out, let me know," Neal passes Simon one of George's business cards. He's relieved the kid keeps it, at least, before walking away.

Reluctantly, he calls Peter to report in.

"I can tell you that Simon Allen and his father are not on the best of terms."

"So it's a bust, then?" Peter asks.

"Oh, Peter, give it a day at least. He might not like me yet, but he still might need me."

"Fine, a day. My agents picked up the girl leaving Simon's apartment this afternoon, but they lost her. You don't lose four FBI agents on accident; she's up to something."

"We'll crack this one, Peter. I'm going to see if I can bump into Simon tonight, subtlety."

He loosely follows the kid back to his apartment, hanging back and checking in with the agents watching the place. After a few hours, he's ready to give this up when the kid heads out. He hangs back again until one of the probies confirms he's followed Simon to a bar in the financial district popular with the Wall Street crowd.

Inside the bar, Neal spots Simon with a group of interns and young bankers near the bar and opts for a table in the back. After a half-hour or so, Simon spots him while walking to meet some girls at another table. Neal nods, the kid nods back. Neal waits. This con requires that the mark come to him.

Neal waits it out, chats up a variety of pretty young women and tries to make it look like he's striking out with them instead of brushing them off after a few minutes. Simon's buddies get drunk, but Simon seems pretty sober. Two hours later, the kid finally seats himself at Neal's table.

"What kind of business did you do with my father?" Simon asks.

"I'm in imports and exports." Neal says. "I help people move things in and out of the country smoothly."

"But you aren't in contact with him? He didn't send you here?"

"Our business ended when he left. I've been out of the country myself, Europe. Just got back."

"You didn't just bump into me." Neal has to admit the kid's not an idiot.

"No, I didn't," Neal admits with an easy grin. "I was hoping your father had sorted out his little problem with the SEC and we might catch up. When I found out he was still away, I thought you might need my help."

Simon nods. A few seconds later, one of his drunken friends calls him over. "I'm going to get him a cab," Simon says. Neal's not sure if that's an excuse to go, but he orders another whiskey, having finally finished his first.

When Simon returns, he seems more certain, speaking almost before he's sat down.

"I might need your help, but not for anything to do with my dad. I don't want him to know anything about this."

"Of course," Neal assures.

The kid takes a deep breath. "You can get passports? Quickly?"

"I can. US?"

"Sure, US. What do you need, pictures, ages, names?"

"If you have a name you want to use, or I can give you a name."

"Yeah, maybe that."

"Of course when I helped your father, it was business. You understand that, don't you Simon?"

The kid smiles, relieved that he's found the catch. "I need them in two days, how much?"

"Five thousand dollars."

"Apiece."

"Yes."

"I'll text you the information tonight."

"A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Allen."

Like stealing candy from a baby, Neal thinks, as he leaves the bar. Or maybe it's more like slipping a baby candy under its mother's nose?

He calls Peter, "Guess who just asked me for two forged passports?"

"It's late Neal," Peter growls, which Neal decides is Peter's way of saying, 'you were right.'

He's barely awake at 1 am when he gets the text from Simon. Well damn. This is not good. Simon Allen wants three passports: one for himself, one for the mysterious Olivia/Amelia and one for Simon's 15-year-old cousin, Lily Wells. Please, let this not be a kidnapping case, Neal thinks as he dials Peter's number.

A/N: For anyone without an encyclopedic knowledge of White Collar, the Roland reference puts this between 3.2 and 3.3. (Me, I looked it up before writing it!) Chapter 3 needs a few revisions, but will be posted sometime tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar.

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 3**

Peter Burke has not had a pleasant night. Neal's call in the middle of the night prompts Peter to spend an hour checking missing person reports and confirming with NYPD that there were no reports of Lily Well's kidnapping. He also confirms with his agents that no one matching the young girl's description had been seen at Simon's apartment.

Now Peter faces the tough choice: would he call Wells and alert him that his daughter might be a potential victim, or even a potential suspect, knowing that it could blow their only lead? Wells was too personally involved to take the case, but Peter had kept the prosecutor updated as a courtesy. A courtesy he could no longer afford. Wells had convinced the SEC he wasn't protecting his brother-in-law, but Pete thinks he's capable of protecting his nephew and certainly his daughter. He assigns two agents to watch Wells' house and tried to go back to sleep.

In the morning, he takes Diana to interview the girl. Neal is at home, putting together the fake ID's. Jones reports that a young woman fitting Olivia's description slipped out of Simon's apartment around four am and successfully dodged three agents. Simon's phone records have produced nothing, but Neal's text came from a pre-paid phone that hasn't been used since. These kids are being careful.

Legally, Peter has no right to interview Lily without her parents present, but he manages to convince Wells to allow himself and Diana to speak to her alone. She isn't a suspect, he assures the prosecutor, for now.

Lily sits in a chair, fidgeting, but she seems to relax as soon as her father leaves the room. Peter makes a mental note of it; he'd expect the opposite.

"Lily, can you think of anything you might know that would help us find the people who broke into your vacation home?" Diana begins gently.

"No, I was here, with my mom that night."

"Is there anyone you've met recently that seemed odd or suspicious?"

"No."

"Are you friends with a young woman named Olivia? Olivia Lawson."

"There's a girl at my school named Olivia. Not Lawson. And we're not really friends. She's a senior, but she was in my drama class."

Peter hands her the picture of Olivia, "Do you recognize this woman. She might be a friend of Simon's?"

Lily glances quickly at the picture and shakes her head, "I don't know very many of Simon's friends."

As they leave the house, Peter is frustrated by their lack of progress.

"I think she was deflecting too much."

"Maybe, but was she lying or is she just being a teenager?" Diana replies. "You know boss, Amelia had a blonde wig and green contacts. Maybe she's planning on disguising herself as Lily and using both passports."

"It's possible. We really need Neal to get more out of Simon."

At the loft, Neal is trying to get more out of his mark, while he and Mozzie prepare the passports. It's not as easy as Neal hoped it would be last night. Simon will only communicate via text. He offers Neal an extra $10,000 if the three passports can be delivered at midnight tonight.

He calls Peter, "Do you want me to stall the kid?"

"No, you can Mozzie can deliver?"

"Yes," Neal says shortly. Peter isn't supposed to know that Mozzie is helping him with the forgeries, but of course he does.

"Move it up, then. Let's see if these kids make any mistakes when they're in a hurry."

Simon has selected the same bar in the financial district for the exchange. Neal is about fifteen minutes early, checking for anything amiss. He spots Diana in a cocktail dress in one corner. He doesn't see Simon, but he does notice one of the kid's drinking buddies from the previous night. The other intern appears to recognize him; then ducks out to make a call. If Simon has his friends scouting the meet, he's being smarter than Neal expected.

He walks in at exactly midnight, orders a drink at the bar and casually walks over to Neal's table.

"I, uh, have the cash," Simon pulls an envelope from his jacket and sets it on the table, his hand resting on it as if he's not sure how to prevent Neal from simply stealing his money.

"I have your passports," Neal sets his own envelope on the table and pushes it towards Simon. Simon nervously checks the passports; Neal smoothly checks the cash.

"Uh, nice doing business with you," Simon says, and offers his hand to Neal. As Neal shakes Simon's hand, he can see Diana subtlety shake her head in the corner. The FBI isn't moving in. They need Simon to lead Neal to his accomplice.

Neal tails Simon late into the night and the early morning. Simon leaves the bar and takes a cab to a nearby club. He stays a little while and ducks out the back door, down an alley and around into a new bar. The kid isn't exactly good at this, but his strategy isn't bad. For four hours Neal follows Simon in and out of clubs, not entirely sure if the kid is trying to avoid being followed or just trying to have a good time. Despite what he knows, Neal is tempted to just give up and go home when three am rolls around and he's watching Simon flirt with yet another drunken coed.

His patience is finally rewarded at 3:30 when Simon takes the subway towards his apartment, but jumps out after two stops. Up on the street, the kid hails a cab. Neal just manages to get the cab's number and calls Peter.

Ten minutes later, Peter picks him up, having already got the cab's destination from dispatch. Simon is headed out of town to a small airstrip.

"Jones just called. Lily Wells snuck out of her house sometime tonight. She left her mom a note."

"I thought you had agents watching the house?" Neal asks.

"I did. She must have had help." Neither of them voices the worry that Lily didn't leave willingly.

"I hope they haven't left yet," Peter says as they arrive at the small airstrip. There are seven hangars and no sign of Simon or anyone else.

"It's not quite light yet," Neal says.

Peter and Neal agree to split up and Neal jogs down to the leftmost hangar. It's locked, but he hears nothing inside. The one after that is the same. But when he stops outside the third hangar, he hears a quiet repetitive sound, like some sort of pump. And then the groaning of something like a massive garage door opening.

He could run around to the side of the building facing the airstrip, but a tall cyclone fence is strung between the hangars. Instead, he pulls a lock pick out of his pocket and jimmies the door. Peter doesn't have a warrant, but certainly a missing fifteen-year-old qualifies as exigent circumstances, right?

Inside the hangar are half a dozen planes. One has been pulled around to the fuel pump by the open hangar door. In the dim light, he first spots Simon manning the fuel pump. Then he catches sight of Amelia standing near the wing with a checklist. She's moving calmly, efficiently through pre-flights while the plane fuels. The Wells girl, Lily, is in the back of the plane. Neal tries to figure out how much time they have, how long it will take Peter to arrive at this hangar. When Amelia sets the checklist inside the plane, and climbs up the steps, Neal decides he has to make a move.

"George?" Simon recognizes him first. "Is something wrong?"

Amelia knows something's wrong; she waves Simon back towards the plane before the words are out of his mouth. He can see the wheels turning in her head as he walks towards her. He only needs a minute or two for Burke and his agents to catch up. She lets him get close; she's on the bottom step, eye level with him.

And then, quick enough to catch him off guard, she pulls a gun on him, barrel to his head. There's no gun Neal hates more than a gun in the hands of a desperate, hotheaded kid. Her eyes are scanning the runway, and the fuel meter. She reaches over to the plane's controls and throws a switch without looking.

"Simon, shut off the fuel line and disconnect it."

"You don't want to do this," Neal says. The gun is a Beretta M9, military issue. She holds it like someone who's fired it before, but there's something off.

"Shut up."

"You aren't really going to look me in the eye and blow my brains out," he says smoothly.

She turns to look directly at him for the first time in the dim light, "Sure I a…" her eyes widen as the words die on her lips. It's more than enough of an opportunity for him to wrench the gun away from her.

"Next time you point a gun at someone, make sure it's loaded," he smirks, but she isn't even paying attention.

"Nick?" How the hell does she know that name? She looks around, "What are you doing here?"

"Olivia Lawson, Simon Allen, you are under arrest," Burke's voice interrupts from the other side of the plane.

"You're with the feds?" Neal isn't quite sure what to say. He's never met this girl, but she knows him, or at least she knows Nick Halden. And there is something familiar about her. 

A/N: So they've caught the bad guys, now what? I don't like to give too much away, but chapter 4 is where I crack this story wide open, so to speak! Thanks to everyone who's read so far, and especially those who reviewed. I haven't had a beta-reader in a while, so if anyone is interested let me know in a review.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar

Here's the explosive chapter I've been promising. Hope it lives up to the hype!

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 4**

Simon Allen asks for a lawyer before he's even put into the squad car and Lily Wells pipes up "Me too."

"You're not under arrest, sweetheart," Jones says. "Your dad will pick you up at the FBI office."

Lily looks stricken. "They didn't make me come. It was my idea. I wanted to go. Olivia didn't…"

"Lily, it's okay," the other girl says, but tears fill Lily's eyes. She doesn't make a sound crying, which Neal finds unsettling. Diana awkwardly puts an arm around the young teen and leads her to a squad car.

Olivia insists that the fuel lines need to be stowed properly and the Cessna needs to be tied down in the hangar. "It's a fire hazard."

"Fine," Peter uses a spare cuff to secure her cuffed hands to the plane's landing gear and looks for a junior agent to photograph the scene. "Watch her," he says to Neal.

The sun breaks over a building to the east a minute later and she squints. Neal has been trying, and failing to place her. He prides himself on his memory.

"I have sunglasses in my pocket. Just sunglasses, no tricks. Do you mind?"

His pickpocket hands slide them out of the pocket of her aviator's jacket without even really touching her, but she stares at his hand like it means something.

"I don't think we've met," he says, looking her directly in the eye.

"No, we haven't," she says enigmatically. She tries to hold his gaze, but after a second she looks down. He's not sure what to make of the mess of confused emotions that play across her face, so he wordlessly slides the glasses onto her face. They're aviators, of course. They fit right in with her vintage leather flight jacket, tan skinny pants and flat-heed boots. She even has a white silk scarf. But somehow she pulls it off rather than looking like a kid in a costume. Maybe it's just because she skipped the hat and goggles. Or maybe it's the confidence she has with the plane.

Peter is distracted, coordinating his agents and the newly arrived forensics squad. This is probably his only chance.

"What happened to the radio?"

"What radio?" she says knowingly. Well fine then. This is going to be difficult.

He expects her to ask for a lawyer once she's directed the agents on how to secure the hangar; she's been smart about everything else, everything except her choice of accomplices. But when they arrive at the federal building, she doesn't ask for a lawyer, she doesn't answer Peter's questions. She just sits in the conference room, as if she's planning a strategy. Neal watches from the balcony, trying to figure her out. Her poker face isn't as good as she thinks it is.

"She is dying to tell you everything," Neal says to Peter as they watch Jones take a turn questioning their suspect.

"Really? She hasn't given us a thing yet," Burke replies.

"She will. She thinks she's cleverest sixteen-year-old that ever lived and she wants to you know it," Neal says.

"Sixteen?" Burke questions.

"Maybe seventeen," Neal offers.

"Olivia's ID says she's twenty-two."

"She's not Olivia and she's not twenty-two," Neal says with conviction.

"But you don't know who she is?" Peter asks, the skepticism plain in his voice. He knows Peter heard her recognize him.

"I don't," Neal says, as convincing as he can be, which isn't up to his usual standard. He should know this kid, he has a feeling about her, but he can't think of where he should know her from. It's been more than eight years since Adler. Where could he have met an eight-year-old? One that knew enough of what he really did to be shocked at the idea of him working for the FBI? It doesn't add up.

Burke drops the subject, because Jones has finally found a topic that might get Olivia talking. Diana has a team going through everything they found on the plane and Jones pulls out a slim purple velvet box.

"Where did you steal this from?" Jones asks as he pulls out the Purple Heart.

"I didn't," she says, clipped. Jones is playing this right; he's pissed her off.

"So where did you get it, then?" Jones pushes.

"You know where it comes from, don't you sailor?" Olivia replies evenly.

"She made Jones," Neal is impressed. She's a little sloppy with some of her plans, and her face gives too much away, but she could be good, very good.

"How'd she do that?" Peter asks.

"I don't know, but it gives us something. That Baretta was military issue, but not loaded."

"Sentimental, like the award," Peter follows his line of thinking. "She's a Navy brat and her father was an officer killed in action." Peter hurries off have an agent track down this new lead.

Neal turns back to the interrogation room, where Olivia is ignoring a ruffled Jones, staring through the glass at Neal instead. She looks away as soon as he tries to meet her eye and spars with Jones about the authenticity of her flight license. The license is forged; her ability to actually fly a plane is real. She's been flying since she was eight. Another clue that doesn't mean anything to him.

He watches her for another hour, still convinced that she desperately wants to spill. It's the damned smirk that keeps creeping across her face, saying I have a secret that will blow your mind. Jones is following his advice, trying to flatter her into impressing them, but she's still resisting. Could her secret be something on Allen?

"I have her," Peter walks up the stairs grinning. Neal wants to ask who she is, to glance at the folder in his hand, but Peter is rushing into the room, triumphant. Neal follows, stands by the door.

"Hello, Vivian, I'm Peter Burke."

_Vivian._ It doesn't mean anything to him. What the hell rhymes with Vivian, anyways? He tries to think of a Vivian, a little girl with brunette curls. There aren't many people Nick Halden knew who even had kids.

She's still, schools the shock off her face very quickly.

"Vivian? Try again Agent Burke."

"We found this," Peter waves a print-out, "in your boyfriend's dorm room." It's a bank brochure. "Two weeks ago, someone defrauded Vivian Bloom's trust fund at Riverside Banner Bank of 1.2 million dollars. Your mother was a naval officer and your family in Louisville thinks you're still at boarding school in Connecticut."

Louisville? He was never Nick until New York.

The smirk stretches across her face once more. Here it is. She'll confess everything, including which of Nick Halden's old acquaintances taught her all about bank fraud. The case will be closed. Simple.

"You figured it out, Agent Burke," she says sarcastically. "I ran away from school and stole my own money. Is truancy a federal offence now?"

"Fraud is, no matter whose money it is," Burke replies.

"Does it say in your file that my Grandfather has Alzheimer's? He might have just forgotten he signed it. Or messed up the decimal point?"

"I'm sure. We also have you on the Wells break-in," Peter continues.

"So Nick didn't tell you about me?" she tries to change the subject.

"Where are the bonds, Vivian?"

"He's a con man, you know."

"We're talking about you." Peter is firm, not shouting but he's quickly losing control of this conversation.

"This _is_ about me," she continues, her cat-with-the-canary grin broad sneaking in between words, "and Nick, and a little mistake he made with a woman he knew seventeen years ago, Victoria Bloom."

The tumblers fall into place and all Neal can do is stare at her. Tori's daughter. Tori Bloom, prettiest girl in the room. She had food poisoning the day he left. He felt guilty, but he couldn't risk getting caught. It wasn't food poisoning. It wasn't food poisoning. It was…

"No…no…" Peter is saying. "Neal, tell me this is a con."

"Oh, it was a con," Vivian says, "She was the mark."

"Neal," Peter pleads.

"I didn't know," he forces the words past the shock. "If I had known…"

"What?" she cuts him off, shrilly, "You wouldn't have skipped town with half a million from my Grandfather's bank?

WCWCWC

Peter Burke hasn't been shocked by Neal Caffrey in a long time. Surprised, caught off-guard, one step behind, yes, but not shocked. Not like this, maybe never like this. Then again, Neal clearly isn't one step ahead of him as he numbly sinks into a chair. He's never seen Neal so unable to pull himself together. That might be the most shocking part.

Neal stares at Vivian like she's the most sublime, fascinating work of art he's ever seen. As if he can authenticate her from the planes of her cheekbones or the shape of her nose. Is this girl a genuine creation of Neal Caffrey or a fake? Vivian tries to stare back, fidgets from his intensity and looks away. Her eyes flash around the room as though she's trying to figure out what happens next. Maybe she's thought about this moment, rehearsed it in her head, but Peter's guessing her script stops after the big reveal. She looks back at Neal, fidgets with her sleeve, and then drops her eyes to the empty table in front of her.

Okay, enough of this. He's still Peter Burke and this is still an interrogation.

"Can you prove any of this?"

"Why would I lie?" she responds, much more quietly now, still looking between Neal and the table.

"Why do you think he's your father?" It's the first time any of them has actually said the words and both Neal and the girl stare at him for a few seconds.

"I need a razor blade," Vivian says, pulling her arms out of the sleeves of her bomber jacket.

"I'm not giving you a razor blade," Peter says incredulously.

"Look, this is a genuine WASP A-2 jacket, not a reproduction. I'm not letting anyone else cut it up." Of course it's not a reproduction. Peter doesn't even know what a WASP A-2 is but if she is Neal's kid, she'd have the genuine article.

"Your evidence is inside it?"

Vivian nods, flips it so the lining is facing up on the table and fidgets with one of the side seams.

"Just give it to her," the desperation in Neal's voice is another shock. Neal persuades or cajoles; he doesn't plead.

"Fine," after all, Peter has an entire room of FBI agents to watch her. He nods at Diana, who walks down the stairs to hunt down a razor blade. It takes a few minutes. Long tedious minutes of Neal staring and Vivian looking from him to the jacket and everyone else watching the two of them. A couple of the Harvard crew whisper, but no one actually speaks. Peter can't think of anything to say.

Diana returns with an X-acto knife. Vivian frowns at it, holds the blade to the light and examines the edge.

"This is dull."

"It's what you get, unless you don't have anything at all." Peter realizes that he's desperately hoping she's lying. That he and Neal can laugh this off over beer and wine later.

She shrugs and then carefully unscrews the blade from the head. She holds it with two fingers and slides it against the handle, honing the blade sharper. Peter resists the urge to drum his fingers on the table, or order her to hurry. She's drawing this out on purpose, for the drama, and his irritation would only play into her hands.

"Better," she concedes and precisely re-assembles the knife. This is exactly the sort of fussy, perfectionist BS Neal would pull, dammit.

She tackles the seam meticulously, carefully slicing stitches without damaging the fabric. After a few, tense minutes, she slides a fabric pouch out of the lining. Inside the pouch are three photos. She passes one to him.

"This is the only one she didn't throw away. I found forgotten it inside a book."

It is Neal. He looks younger, of course and far less polished. He's wearing faded jeans and, is that flannel? He's with a pretty-looking blonde woman, outside under a tree. He hands it to Neal, who stares at it for several long seconds.

"I remember this," he says quietly, "we had a picnic."

"It doesn't prove anything," Peter says. "There could have been someone else."

Neal shakes his head, then shrugs. Peter looks over at Vivian and is not surprised to be met with a look of scorn.

"It's not like she remembered him fondly. I think if there was anyone else, would have been happy about it."

Peter glances at the other photographs. One is of Vivian and Victoria posing in front of the skyhawk. The other is Vivian with an older man—the grandfather, he assumes—in front of a fireplace. Diana looks at the jacket and retrieves the cash and ID Vivian has sewn in along with the photos. There's also a pair of earrings, each with half a dozen small blue stones. They look expensive.

"Are these stolen?" Diana asks Vivian.

She shrugs. "I took them from my mother's jewelry box because they were pretty and she never wore them. As for whether or not they're _stolen, _I'm guessing you should ask him." She nods at Neal. Of course. And Neal smiles enigmatically, which Peter knows by now means yes. Diana slides the earrings into an evidence bag. The kid will get them back, eventually. Seventeen years is far beyond the statute of limitations.

"I never used the name Nick Halden in Louieville." Neal says and Peter is relieved that he's finally thinking again.

"A guy I knew once, he saw the picture this one time," she says, evasively. "He said it was Nick Halden, who used to work for this big shot Adler who disappeared with a lot of people's money. So then I knew you were really Nick."

"Neal," his CI corrects, finally. "It's actually Neal Caffrey."

"Gee Whiz, I guess I need a new birth certificate. That says Nathan Harris."

Peter has had about enough of her deflective sarcasm. If this is a con, he needs to put a stop to it. If it's for real, he needs to give Neal a chance to process it. Either way, he needs certainty. Peter reaches for the phone and dials forensics, "How is the DNA from the dorm room coming?"

They're almost done processing. "I want you to run a broad search. Look for any relatives in the system."

And now, Peter still has an investigation to wrap up.

"Let's finish this."

"I need a needle and thread," Vivian says.

"Tell me about the bonds." He insists.

"Okay, I need a needle, thread and my lawyer," Vivian replies.

The Harvard crew files out. The show is finally over, but Neal is still sitting, smiling slightly in what Peter can only guess is approval.

A/N: So there's the big twist of the first part of the story. The next few chapters will deal with the fallout. What the hell is Neal going to do with this information? What does Vivian want?


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar.

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 5**

Neal usually enjoys the FBI office, terrible coffee and paperwork notwithstanding. He works with good people, gets to be the guy that gets a second (third? fourth?) chance. Today, he can't stand the idea of being here; he needs to get outside somewhere to think. The FBI rooftop will have to do. Peter finds him out there eventually.

"Neal, are you sure this isn't a con?"

"I don't see how, Peter." He kept trying to see through this girl, figure out what game she was playing, but all he could see was the color of her eyes, the shape of her mouth. The color of _his_ eyes, the shape of _his_ mouth.

"She's sixteen. You must have been eighteen."

"Louisville was the first place I landed when I left St. Louis. My first big con."

"And you had no idea."

"None. Tori—Victoria, was the last woman I expected to choose to raise a kid alone. She was ambitious, determined to be a naval pilot. When we met, she was on summer leave from Annapolis." It feels strange to think it, because there's a living, breathing sixteen-year-old inside, but he would have expected Tori to have an abortion and get on with her life. She wasn't religious; she never talked about wanting kids. Then again, she was lonely. Her father was a cold bastard; her mother was dead. He'd used that loneliness to get close to her.

"From the looks of it, she got what she wanted and raised a kid." Peter observes.

"And never tried to track me down to tell me," he finishes.

"Can you blame her?" Peter asks.

"No, I can't." If Tori were alive, he'd send the girl back to her mother and tell her she was better off never seeing him again. But Tori is dead and Vivian is a criminal. And despite the fact that he's never met the girl before today, it feels like it's his fault.

After a few more long minutes of staring at the skyline, Peter tells him to take the rest of the day off.

"What about?" he gestures back inside.

"We're going to have to book her. She called some white shoe firm that works for her Grandfather's bank and handles her trust. They'll hire a criminal defense attorney. Earliest we'll meet is tomorrow."

"And the DNA?"

"Tonight or tomorrow morning."

"Call me," Neal insists.

Outside, on the streets of the city with a fresh cup of decent coffee, the whole thing feels unreal. Maybe she's not really his kid. Maybe Victoria took up with someone else on the rebound, someone who left for a more pedestrian reason, or someone she left. Maybe this kid just found a picture of him in an old book and assumed too much.

He goes home, tries to paint, can't get anything right. He calls Peter and there's no real update except that Vivian's arraignment is at four this afternoon. He's almost convinced himself that she can't possibly be his kid, but he's still thinking about the tunnels from the Metropolitan Correctional Center to the courthouse. He never found a way to break out of from the inside, but maybe from the outside? Then he tells himself to stop, because that's ridiculous.

And yet, by three the apartment is starting to feel oppressive. He's just walking around the city. He's _not_ walking to the courthouse-although it's only 6 blocks away—when Peter calls at 3:45.

"Neal." The careful tone of Peter's voice is all he needs.

"You got a DNA match."

"Yes."

He hangs up on Peter—he's not nearly ready to talk about this—and hurries towards the courthouse. She's his kid, this is somehow his fault, so he has to do something to get her out of here. The only way is to do it at the courthouse. After all, it's a busy place, lawyers trying to get clients arraigned and released before the end of the workday. He walks inside, lets the marshals at the metal detector examine his anklet, and finds the correct courtroom.

She's sitting in a row of defendants and its plain as day now that he knows the truth. She has his eyes. She has his smile, and she's currently using it on her stuffed shirt defense attorney. He stands in the back, trying to come up with a plan to get her out of here. He really should let her know he's here. He's going to need her to follow his lead once he comes up with the plan. But he's not ready to meet her eye and instead finds himself ducking out of sight.

Wells himself walks in, with another assistant US attorney. Vivian spots Wells and it's plain she despises the man and doesn't care who knows it. Interesting.

Two arraignments before hers wrap up, and then she's standing with her lawyer and the unknown assistant US attorney in front of the judge. She pleads not guilty and the assistant US attorney asks for $500,000 dollars cash or bond. That's a surprise. Vivian is a flight risk, in the most literal sense of the word. Maybe Simon convinced his uncle to go easy on her. Whatever is going on with Vivian and Lily and Simon can just go in the massive stack of things that don't make sense to him.

He slips out of the courtroom before she can see him. Five hundred thousand. It's doable. Outside the courthouse, he dials the number.

"Mozzie, I need five hundred thousand dollars, as fast as you can get it."

"Now you want me to sell the Degas?" Mozzie protests.

"Not the Degas. Something small. Those gold rings."

"Those are easily worth two million."

"So fence them to someone who has no idea what they are. The FBI will have a hard time tracing them."

"You want me to give them away? Neal, what do you need the money for?"

"For bail."

"Bail for whom?"

"Someone important. Just do it, Moz."

There's a bar outside the courthouse and Neal needs a drink. Actually, this probably warrants getting full-on drunk, but you can't bail someone out of jail drunk. You especially can't bail your own child out of jail drunk. He does have two, very expensive glasses of whiskey before Mozzie texts him that he has the money. They meet outside the MCC.

"Who are you bailing out of jail?" Mozzie asks.

"Amelia Heiress," he can't find the words to tell Mozzie the truth, not yet.

"You want to talk to her before she talks to the feds," Mozzie guesses.

"Something like that," he'd almost forgotten about the Nazi radio. At the movement he's acting on impulse and instinct. He owes her this, at the very minimum.

WCWCWC

Vivian sits in the cell, different from the one she had before arraignment and tells herself everything is going to be fine. She can't think about _him; _she needs to focus on how she's going to get out of here. Her defense attorney knows a bondsman; Tinsley-Britt, her law firm and trustees, will approve the withdrawal from her trust and they will have her out of here by morning. She just has to make it through one night. No one has tried to shiv her or anything. She's slept in worse places in her seven months in NYC. Seven months in the same city as her father. She could have walked by him on the street and not even noticed.

Stop it. She can only think about jail, how she's going to handle being in here. Her cellmate is kind of nice. She was arrested for allegedly selling pot on federal property, which Vivian agrees is ridiculous. Angela is impressed at the short version of her alleged crimes. So far she's the scary one here. She can work with that. Maybe Neal was in here, maybe that's why he's working with the feds.

Enough, she tells herself as she lies on the bed. Thinking about tomorrow is better. Tonight will be fine but tomorrow she needs to get Wells to make her a deal or she's going to be in a place like this for a long time. She needs the stuffed shirts to keep Wells from screwing her on the details, but she also needs to get rid of them all, just for a minute to talk to Wells alone. She can salvage this mess. God, she was so stupid to get caught. She should have listened to her gut and told Simon she could get passports somewhere else. Did Jacek sell her out? It would be darkly ironic for him to sell her out to her father after they argued about Nick, but she didn't think Jacek had that kind of wit.

God, just when she decides she doesn't care about Nick Halden or whoever the hell he really is, he shows up and arrests her? What is she going to do now that she's played her only card in the FBI office today? Sure, she knew everything and they knew nothing. She had been calm, unemotional, smug, just like she'd imagined for the last year. But the triumph feels so silly now. She shocked everyone, shocked him and then he disappeared and she's still in jail.

What else did she expect? She's never wanted or needed a father; he was just a missing piece in a mystery her mother and grandfather kept from her. She should have had an actual plan instead of a childish stall, should have found a way to use what she knew to get herself out of this. Damn him for walking into her hangar, walking into her life, and making everything complicated.

Wells won't be on the case himself, but he can lean on the prosecutor to who gets the case, right? She just has to—

"Bloom," it's the female guard, the one who made being strip-searched for the first time less frightening than it could have been. She's really trying to appreciate the small things.

"Yes ma'am," she stands up, tries out the Southern manners. The guard rolls her eyes, it's too much.

"You made bail."

They got it all set up tonight? She doesn't have to sleep in this terrible place?

"Move it, Bloom!" She hurries to shove her hands in the slot so they can cuff her. In the processing room, they give her back her clothes. This is the third time today she's put them on. She's not sure where she's even going. Tinsley said something about a hotel and something else about emergency foster care, but surely it's too late for that?

But it's not Tinsely or her defense attorney standing in the waiting room with her personal effects. It's Neal.

"You!"

"Me," he grins. And looking at that grin, she understands what made her mom go out with this man. There is something irresistible about him. It's not sexual, although she can kind of see how it could be for someone else; it's just his way of looking at you that makes you want to follow him. But he is a con man and she can't trust him.

She waits until all the paperwork is signed and they're outside, until she's sure he won't change his mind, to ask him. "Why?"

"It was less trouble than breaking you out, marginally."

She smirks back at him; it's the only possible response to something so ridiculous. Then again, maybe it's not so ridiculous. Maybe he could break her out of a secure federal facility. Everything about this is insane, really. She is walking down Park Row with her father, who just bailed her out of jail. She's supposed to be in Mexico with Simon and Lily.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, fine."

"You've never been in jail before, have you?"

She shrugs. "It's not that bad. The food is terrible."

He laughs, "That it is. Hungry?"

"I guess I am."

He steps ahead of her and stops facing her, "What will it be?" He waves his hand around like he's offering her the entire city.

"Sushi," she chooses, and reminds herself that she doesn't trust him.

"Sushi," he contemplates and then leads her across the street.

"So, why do you work for the FBI?" This is the thing about him that makes the least sense.

"It's a better way of serving out my sentence than prison." He lifts his cuff and shows her the anklet. That explains it. It's probably impolite to ask him what he did to get caught.

"I should probably call my attorneys and tell them they don't have to pick me up here in the morning."

"Sure," he doesn't sound eager and she wonders if he doesn't want anyone else to know she's with him. That thought ought to be scary, but it isn't.

"I can leave a message at the office."

He nods, but he doesn't offer her his phone. Maybe he's really reluctant. Are they going to get sushi or are they going to flee the country, she wonders. Not that that would be bad exactly.

He surprises her by stepping into a bodega, and just when she wonders if they are going to dart out the back door into a mysterious black car, he stops in front of the pre-paid cell phones and grabs one—the most expensive one, she notices.

"It won't play Tiny Tower, but it has its advantages."

"You don't have to," she protests, following him to the checkout. Really though, having a phone would be really nice and the FBI isn't giving hers—any of them—back anytime soon.

"It's no problem," he replies and she doesn't protest further, because maybe he doesn't trust her to borrow his phone.

"Tell them to pick you up at the FBI building."

She leaves the message as they walk the rest of the way to the sushi restaurant. It's not a long walk. Even better, it isn't the sort of place that's all California rolls on a conveyor belt. The staff is all Japanese and something about the atmosphere tells her she can probably get a decent Uni roll. Neal gets them a table right away and the menu doesn't disappoint. She only needs a few minutes to decide. When she puts the menu down, Neal is staring at her. He waves the waitress over and Vivian is pretty sure the waitress will try to give him her number at some point. Neal orders the chef's choice platter, and she orders her rolls in fluent Japanese, because she can't resist showing off.

"Your Japanese is good," he says in that language.

"I lived in Okinawa for 18 months."

"Where you learned to appreciate see anemone and eel in your sushi. I should have guessed, you're a Navy brat." He's switched back to English. The idiom doesn't really exist in Japanese. "Where else did you live?"

"San Diego, Fallon, Norfolk, twice actually. A year in Sicily, a few months in Bahrain."

"What did you think of Italy?"

"It was beautiful. The food was amazing, the markets, we had this incredible view of the Mediterranean."

"And the art?"

"Yeah," she agrees. "We went to some of the museums on the mainland. I mean, I was six, seven and we never went to church or anything so a lot of the renaissance art kind of went over my head."

"Of course," he nods. She can't help but feel that she's disappointed him somehow and tries to remember something.

"There was this one time," Vivian narrates. "We went to Rome for the weekend and one of the officers wanted to see the Muse Capitolini. There was this man, very stereotypically Italian, the kind of guy who gives a six-year-old a flower because he wants to sleep with her mother, you know?"

"Yeah," he replies. She's pushing his buttons and she's pretty sure she's being too obvious about it, but she needs him to know that she's more than capable of seeing through charmers.

"Well he finds me in front of this painting. I think at first I was just curious about the clothes, a boy with a feather in his hat, girl in a turban. He told me there was a trick, that he thought I looked like a smart enough little girl to find it. It took me at least ten minutes. Everyone else moved on. Then, I saw it. It kind of seems like a bad omen now…"

"Carravagio's Fortune Teller," Neal guesses. "She looks like she's just reading his palm…"

"But she's actually stealing his ring," Vivian finishes.

"I'll make you a copy sometime," Neal promises and she giggles at the idea. But he actually looks earnest and she wonders if he really could.

The sushi comes then and she realizes she's letting herself get taken in by him. It hasn't even been an hour and she's dying to really impress him. The full force of his attention and charm is overwhelming. Don't fall for it, she tells herself, figure it out, and copy it.

Eating is a good distraction. She hasn't had sushi this good in a while.

"Was it hard, moving around so much?"

"Not really, it was normal. I learned to make friends easily."

"I'll bet. And Louisville is a nice home base."

"It's alright. I love my grandfather, but I swear that house is a haunted mansion." He smiles at that remark. Of course, he's been there. "Home was…" she cuts herself off. Don't let him get this close.

"Home was where ever your mom was," he finishes gently, so understanding. She hates it. "I haven't said how sorry I am."

"Don't," she cuts him off, and then pauses because the last thing she is going to do is let him see her upset. "You didn't love her," she's proud of how flat, how unaffected her voice is. "You didn't even really know her."

"That's fair," he nods.

They finish the sushi quietly. Neal tells a story about a case he solved with Agent Burke and Vivian laughs in the funny parts because she's not mad at him. As long as he doesn't talk about her mom.

"I should get you home." He says finally. It is after ten.

"Do I have a curfew?" she teases.

"You probably should."

"So, I'm staying with you?"

"I'm not letting you out of my sight. I want that half a million back."

"You paid in cash?" she asks. Why would he do that?

"I'm not on the best of terms with bondsmen."

"Oh, right," she says, but she's still thinking about how much money that is. "Neal, do you need a pilot? Are you conning the FBI? Is that what this is about?" It really would explain everything. "Because I cased a couple of airstrips last week. There's a great target, but the security system was a bit beyond me." He's just staring, so she keeps talking. "The ceiling will be high tomorrow. New York is always a pain in the ass because there's so little uncontrolled airspace, but we can make it through the VFR corridor if we leave at dawn. I know a couple of radar gaps in Texas that narco planes use to sneak across the border. Neal?"

**A/N:** Tiny Tower was a popular smartphone game in 2010, and Caravaggio's Fortune Teller is a real painting. I'd link it, but given the way this site handles links, you can probably google it faster. In aviation, ceiling refers to the height of the cloud base above the ground; uncontrolled airspace is close to the ground, away from airports, and unregulated by air traffic control. VFR is visual flight rules, or flights without instruments (typically in smaller, personal planes) and a VFR corridor is a route for such flights that goes through airspace controlled by air traffic control.

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Chapter 6 is being edited and will be up tomorrow if not before.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar.

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 6**

It would work, Neal thinks. It would actually work. He could call Mozzie right now and start getting the treasure loaded. They'd have to hurry to do it by morning, but they could pull it off. He's not following all of the flight jargon, but it's clear this kid—his kid—knows her stuff. If she has access to a plane and an airstrip Peter has never heard of, if she still has access to the almost four million she stole, they wouldn't have to fence anything here in New York. He'd pay her back in a few weeks, a hundred times over.

She's using to moving from place to place, cutting ties, making new friends. He could teach her how to create better aliases, how to keep one step ahead of the feds. He'd show her how to run a few little scams, just in case. It's an odd way of being a father, but it's one he could actually be good at.

But she'd never have any life but running and hiding, never even finish high school. If he dragged Vivian into this, Peter would charge him with kidnapping and never forgive him. And he'd probably be right. It's so tempting to just run, so much easier than figuring out what he's supposed to do tomorrow and the next day and the next. But he can't.

"No, I don't need a pilot. I'm just trying to make up for getting you arrested."

"You do kind of owe me for that," she responds and the entire idea is forgotten. He doesn't bring up the fact that she pointed a gun at him. They really should have a conversation about why guns are a very bad idea, but that feels like such a fatherly thing and he's frankly not ready for it.

They catch the subway and get off on Riverside drive. "Wow," Vivian says, when they stop in front of June's. "This is a lot nicer than jail."

"It's not quite what you think," he says.

"We're squatting here while the owners are on vacation?" she offers. He laughs.

"Not that either. I have an apartment."

He guides her around to the back stairs that give the apartment its semi-private entrance. She follows him up four flights and into the loft.

"There's another guest room that I can ask June—my landlady—about tomorrow. You okay with the couch for now?"

"Sure," she says distractedly, as she takes in the apartment. He just knows that she's cataloged all the exits, including the trap door in the ceiling, and made a guess about where the hall door leads.

She peers out the French doors to look at the balcony and he assures her the view is even better in the daylight. He doesn't assure her that there's a fire escape off the south side, although he'd bet she wondered.

"This is really nice," she comments.

"I lucked into finding it, you might say."

The FBI has almost all her stuff, so he digs out a pair of striped pajamas he almost never wears. Then again, with a teenage girl around, he might get more use from them.

"Bathroom's through that door," he points past the dining table, "second on the right."

He's tucking the sheet into the couch cushions when she returns, rolling up the sleeves.

"Thanks, for doing this, all of this," she says as she stands up from putting her clothes into her flight bag.

"It's the least I could do," he says sincerely. "Goodnight, Vivian." Impulsively he bends over and kisses her forehead.

She gives him an odd look, "Goodnight, Neal."

* * *

His first coherent waking thought is, _this is karma._ Neal doesn't really believe in karma. He abhors physical violence, and the rest of his ethics are very flexible. But the empty couch, sheets and blankets neatly folded, tells him he really ought to start believing in karma because it's right in front of him.

He stands up, looks around the empty apartment, checks the couch for clues. Beside it sits Vivian's vintage flight bag. As the worry drains into relief, Neal decides that while he's impersonated Peter before, he's never really stood in the man's shoes until this moment. Peter would find that highly amusing.

He glances at the door that leads to the bathroom, then spots her out on the balcony. And of course, she's sitting up on the parapet, back against the large angel carving. He walks outside quietly, he doesn't want to startle her and watch her fall four stories.

"Be careful," he says softly.

"I know, don't blink, right?"

"Huh?"

She shakes her head, "I've never been afraid of heights."

"I'm sure. Can I tempt you down with coffee and an omelet?"

"You cook?"

"I have many talents."

"I...can make toast," Vivian offers as she jumps down.

He wants to ask her what she was thinking, not just the insanity of sitting on the ledge, but whatever drove her out of bed at six am to sit and stare into the sunrise, but the moment is gone.

She eats a huge omelet and three pieces of toast and Neal finds he sort of enjoys this form of taking care of someone. He's always been good at this with girlfriends. She's no doubt supposed to go somewhere else in a day or two, but maybe she could visit on weekends. He could cook, teach her to make paella, maybe she'd like to learn to paint?

After breakfast, he cleans up and she pulls her wrinkled pants out of her bag.

"I don't suppose you have any women's clothes here, left by a girlfriend or something?"

There is a sweater Sarah forgot a few weeks ago, and maybe some gym clothes, but nothing useful. He hasn't thought about Sarah at all in the past twenty-four hours and he's grateful she's out of town for a case because he has no idea how she'd react to this development.

"June might have something. I'll call down and see if she's awake."

The housekeeper tells him June is taking breakfast and he asks her to pass along that he'd love for madam to come upstairs and meet a guest. He expects that will get his landlady's attention. June has met Sarah, of course, but it's not as though he invited June up for breakfast after their first sleepover. So she'll wonder exactly what sort of guest he has over before seven in the morning.

June knocks once and walks in, "Good morning, Neal."

"Good morning June. This is Vivian. Vivian, this is June, my landlady."

Vivian stands and shakes June's hand, "It's a pleasure. You have such a beautiful home."

"Neal?" June pauses, looking between them. "Neal, she looks just like you!" she says with amazement.

"I know," he says softly. Of course June would figure it out.

"When, when did this happen?"

"About seventeen years ago," Vivian offers breezily, but June's sharp glance puts a stop to her usual sarcasm. "Neither of us actually knew until yesterday." She leans in, conspiratorially, "He helped arrest me."

"Lord have mercy," June says, shaking her head. Neal has a feeling she's trying not to laugh at him. June probably believes in karma.

"Vivian's things, including her clothes, are in the FBI's evidence lock-up. I was hoping you might have something she could borrow."

"Of course, there are some things I bought for my granddaughter when she was in high school that might be your size. Come downstairs with me."

While she's gone, he grabs her phone. He's not sure if this is wrong; maybe it's just good parenting? There's only the one outgoing call, to her defense attorney. There's a text, though, sent last night to a number he doesn't recognize. She hasn't programmed it into the address book.

_Are you ok?_

The reply didn't come until early this morning.

_I'm not sure I can do this anymore._

_Do you need me to come? Say it, Lils and I'll find a way._

_No, I just need to get out of here._

_Hold tight, I have a plan. _

Vivian, Neal wonders, what are you up to?

* * *

**A/N:** So Neal's decided not to run, for now. What about Vivian? Also, anyone else ever look at that statue on Neal's balcony and think "Don't blink!" Just me? Coming soon in chapter 7, the 'take your daughter to work day' con!


	7. Chapter 7

This is still S3 AU, but there is one vague reference to S4 revelations about Neal's background that could be considered spoilerish.

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar

**Fly, Fly Away**

**Chapter 7**

The day after they bring in a suspect is always hectic at the office. Diana can't say she likes the paperwork of wrapping up a case, but she likes the energy of the transition. There's always gossip about who's getting which new assignments and who has to catalog evidence to be sent to the prosecutor's office. With their most recent case turning very personal for their charming C.I., everyone seems to be on their toes, waiting for what happens next. After the phone call she just had, Diana's afraid it's not going to be good.

Peter waves her into his office.

"Are we still questioning Vivian Bloom today?" she asks.

"At two, why?"

"She's out of the MCC and I haven't been able to get a hold of her attorney."

"She's out?"

"On bail," Diana clarifies. "I was surprised they didn't ask for remand. I think there's something Wells isn't telling us about this case."

"Besides his daughter and nephew's involvement?" Diana shrugs; she's had a bad feeling about him since the beginning. "Who bailed out Vivian?" She's about to say she doesn't know when he tells her to never mind. He's looking past her and Diana turns around, only to see Neal and Vivian herself walking inside. Well, of course.

"Look at the two of them." Neal is in his usual ratpack suit and fedora. And he's helping Vivian out of a white coat—who actually wears white coats? Underneath, she's wearing a vintage green dress with something like lace at the collar. Briefly she wonders if Neal picked it out. Then again, this is the teenager who was dressed like Amelia Earhart yesterday.

"It's like Mad Men or something," Peter says.

"Is it just me, boss, or is the idea of them doing some sort of father/daughter bonding…"

"Absolutely terrifying?" Peter finishes. "Yes, yes it is."

* * *

Everyone in the office is staring at them, and while being the center of attention doesn't usually make Neal Caffrey uncomfortable, he's never been the center of attention for this reason. He's desperately hoping no one will pass out cigars.

Vivian just grins, "So, this is where you work."

"This is my desk," he says as she sits in his chair.

"Very nice. Does this help you think?" She points to the bust.

"Sometimes." She's acting different, younger and he's not sure why.

Jones nodded to him when he came in, but now he turns to Vivian politely and asks how she is.

"Not bad, considering. What are you working on?"

"Well," Jones closes a case file—Neal is pretty sure it's _her_ case file—and opens another. "I'm trying to solve this mortgage fraud case."

Vivian purses her lips, "Everyone talks about that on the news, but I don't really get it. If you don't pay your mortgage, don't they just take back the house? What's the point of lying about it?"

"Well sure, but it's not really the homeowner that's the problem," Jones explains. "I mean, people might fudge their income a little because they think they can afford a nicer house, but the potential for fraud comes from the mortgage brokers. They get a commission on every mortgage they sell."

"Even if the people who buy the house can't actually afford it?"

"Exactly. They also use adjustable rates…"

She keeps this up for an hour, sweetly talking to everyone like she wasn't glaring sullenly at them yesterday, asking easy, childish questions. She even asks Janice about the filing system and marvels at the size of the copy machine—bigger than the ones she's seen at school. It's a con and he's helping her sell it, showing her the break room and making introductions. Mentally, he calls it 'Take your Daughter to Work Day' and it's brilliant, really. By the end of the hour, no one in this office remembers that she's facing serious felony charges. She's just Neal's sweet kid who got into some trouble. He's not sure the sentiment will last, but it can't hurt.

Peter only speaks to them briefly, in between a couple of important phone conferences with other divisions.

"You bailed her out." Peter observes while Vivian charms Karen.

"It seemed like the right thing to do," Neal says casually.

"I suppose. And she's staying with you?"

"Well," Vivian inserts herself into the conversation, "until CPS gets through their paperwork backlog."

She says it lightly and turns away to ask Diana how many years of school you need to join the FBI, but Neal knows she's bluffing. No kid who has had any interaction with CPS takes it lightly. He can say that from experience. He's never really been able to pinpoint his first con—it's really a matter of how you define the difference between a small con and a big lie—but conning social workers into leaving him alone could qualify.

It would have been a little different from Vivian, who clearly grew up upper middle class. No one joins the military for the money but he's sure Mr. Bloom supplied any extras Victoria couldn't afford on an officer's salary. Someone would have made sure she had a decent foster family. However, plenty of so-called decent people are greedy and her trust had enough money to be tempting. The report he looked at yesterday before he went home said she'd run away from two different foster families before her lawyers suggested boarding school.

He knows that the idea of her staying with him is ridiculous, but there has to be something he can do to make sure she ends up someplace good. She needs someone like Peter and Elizabeth looking after her.

Tinsley Britt sends a car for her at 9:30 to discuss her case before they meet with the FBI and he walks her downstairs, although it's not really necessary.

"Thanks for the help," she says, "you know."

"We'll have to do it again some time," he says, although he really shouldn't.

"Later," she says, stepping into the towncar. It's only a few hours, but he feels an odd anxiety watching her go.

* * *

"How's Neal holding up, hon?" Elizabeth asks over the phone.

"I don't know. You know how he is, El. Yesterday he was just stunned, overwhelmed. Today he's pulled it all together. Who knows what he's really feeling."

"But he bailed her out of jail, gave her a place to stay."

"He did," Peter isn't sure Vivian was allowed to stay with Neal, and her casual reference to CPS being too busy to find her for a few days isn't very reassuring.

"I can't believe I have this three-day conference to manage. We're having them over for dinner on Friday. I need to meet her."

"I'll see what I can do," Peter agrees.

"You know, this could be really good for Neal. He needs something normal, something stable." Leave it to Elizabeth to see the bright side.

"Maybe. I'm sorry but I have to go. The paperwork on this has been insane."

"Of course. Bye, hon."

"Bye, hon," he echoes.

Peter looks down into the pit, watching Neal. His CI is uncharacteristically staring off into space. Neal is always one to look for a shortcut, but he doesn't outright slack off at work. Of course, Peter had to pull him off Vivian's case so he's back to combing through cold cases for something everyone else has missed. He decides to give the younger man a break and wave him into his office. And they do need to talk about Neal's report.

"How are you doing, really Neal?"

"I'm fine. I am," Neal insists.

"Okay," Peter lets it drop for now. "We need to talk about this," he picks up Neal's printed report. "You left out the gun."

"I never saw a gun," Neal says with a smile.

"Neal, we recovered it at the scene," Peter insists. "We can check it for prints."

"Fine, I remember now. I saw it on the plane, and checked it to be sure it was unloaded."

"Neal."

"Look Peter, sending her to prison will only make her more of a criminal than she is now," Neal says earnestly.

It's an argument Peter Burke gets a lot from white collar criminals and their attorneys. It's an argument he's learned to ignore, because what it usually means is that people who don't look like criminals, people who are usually white and rich and powerful, deserve a pass. That's neither just nor fair. But when it comes to Vivian, it's probably true.

His team thinks so too. Everyone knew her little act this morning was an act, but it still worked. Jones and Diana have been running down leads in the Nazi radio case, cross checking with the case files on Adler and they still haven't found anything. Maybe they don't want to find anything, or maybe Vivian was just that careful.

"Riverside Banner bank is refusing to cooperate," Peter admits. "They've classified everything as an internal matter. I think they'd rather their shareholders not hear how easily they were conned by their founder's granddaughter. I could try to get a subpoena, but…"

Neal just nods.

"The Wells break-in comes down to just theft," Peter continues. "Simon had pre-established access to the house, so robbery won't stick."

"Her defense attorney is good. He can do a lot with that."

"Neal, actions have consequences!"

"I know that." Peter hopes he does. Four years in prison should have taught him that, but sometimes it seems Neal still believes he can get away with anything if he has a good enough plan.

"Have you talked to the FAA?" Neal offers after a minute.

"It's on my list."

"I think that may have more impact on her than anything else."

"You think grounding her, literally, is the appropriate punishment for all this?"

"Vivian may have forged the registration, but flight safety, following all of the pre-flight checks, that's important to her. She respects flight rules. Losing her license for a while, that will sting, it'll mean more than juvie would."

"I'll give them a call. Neal, you know it's not really up to me what happens from here."

"Yeah, anything you can do Peter, I appreciate."

Peter nods towards the glass wall. Vivian has returned, escorted by a phalanx of attorneys.

"She's not a bad kid, Peter."

"I know. Have you thought about what happens after all this?"

"That's the scary part," Neal admits. "There will be a social worker or something. I don't know, I'm so over my head."

Elizabeth is right, Peter decides. This could be good for Neal, but it could also be the thing that pushes him to run. Whether or not Neal has the treasure, the search for it is over. They have all the answers they're going to get about Kate. There's a lot less keeping Neal in New York these days.

"This—what you just said—that was fatherly," Peter offers. He's so used to Neal acting like an adolescent himself, but there's an adult, a parental adult even, in him somewhere.

Neal just shrugs.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay with this chapter. I've been out of town without my laptop and the version of this chapter I pre-loaded into the site's document manger was inexplicably full of weird html tags.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Just to clarify timelines, the first chapter of this story takes place near the end of Season 2, and everything after that takes place in very early Season 3. Neal and Mozzie have the treasure; Peter doesn't know. The Nazi radio Vivian _allegedly_ stole is a loose end that might undo everything.

**Chapter 8**

At some point yesterday, Neal wondered if he would need to employ Mozzie's dubiously earned legal credentials on Vivian's behalf, but her small army of attorneys is more than thorough. Hunter, her defense attorney, does most of the talking in the meeting, suggesting that Vivian returned to the beach house with Simon to look for a necklace Vivian had misplaced. He implies Simon had his own, unspoken reason for returning. The two split up inside. Hunter waits to see if Jones has any evidence to the contrary.

Neal guesses that if the FBI can shoot holes in that story, Hunter will use a different one later. Because her attorney is doing the talking, the FBI won't get any conflicting statements to use against Vivian. And if Simon tells a different story, well maybe he's lying because he took the bonds himself when the two were in different parts of the house. It's a sound legal strategy and Hunter's doing a very good job of drawing out just what the FBI can prove without letting Vivian admit to anything.

Sound legal strategies make for very boring interrogations. For ninety minutes Peter and his agents probe and Hunter deflects. When he actually allows Vivian to answer the occasional question herself, it's clear they coached her on what to say this morning. Hunter describes a series of text messages between Vivian and Lily where Lily described how much she hated her parents and asked Vivian for help running away. Hunter is clearly trying to get out ahead of any possible kidnapping charge.

The back and forth reveals little else that's new. Peter presses hard on the whereabouts of the bonds, but Hunter and Vivian reveal nothing. Clearly they think Peter won't find the bonds, but Neal knows Peter better than either of them. Vivian is going to need more than stonewalling to avoid jail time.

When they wrap up around 3:30, Vivian's legal team asks for a moment in the conference room before they leave, so Neal files out with the FBI agents. Two or three minutes later, Hunter and his associates leave, followed by most of the Tinsley-Britt lawyers. Vivian catches his eye and cheekily copies Hugh's two finger point and beckon. Neal glares at her. Someone needs to tell her she's not allowed to do that! She smirks back, and he slowly stands and walks upstairs.

Inside, he sits next to her and Vivian immediately says to Tinsley, "Okay, say what you just told me again so Neal can hear it."

"Miss Bloom, our _father_ is not legal counsel. In fact I've researched you Mr. Caffrey and I'm not convinced of your suitability to supervise my client."

"He wants his money back," Vivian retorts. Neal winces at her cynicism. Does she really thing that's all he cares about or is she just trying to sound worldly in front of her lawyer?

"I assure you, I'll keep an eye on her," Neal says, using his most earnest face on Tinsley. "We're having fun getting to know each other."

Tinsely just frowns even more deeply, "I've contacted Child Services. I expect you to cooperate with them fully."

"Of course," Neal says.

"Moving to the business at hand then, my position as legal counsel and trustee to you," Tinsley says to Vivian, "and my position as legal counsel to Riverside Banner rarely conflict, but on such occasions as this, with a potential conflict, I feel it is my duty to advise you to consult with an independent legal counsel."

"Alright…I…waive my right to independent counsel…at present," Vivian says

Tinsley smiles tolerantly. "I'm obligated to inform you that there is a motion before the board of the bank that revises some rules regarding stock options in the event that you were to exercise certain privileges as majority shareholder."

He hands them a copy of the motion; it's ten or twelve pages long. Neal flips through it.

"Majority shareholder? Vivian questions.

"These are the board members granted stock options," Neal says as he points to a list in Section 5C. Neal doesn't recognize any of the names, but Bloom isn't among them.

"This is like a poison pill," Vivian realizes. "My grandfather explained it, back when…" _Back when he could explain things_, Neal mentally finishes. There is no way she didn't know what mortgage fraud was before this morning.

"A poison pill is a provision intended to prevent a hostile takeover," Tinsley corrects.

"But this works the same way," Vivian replies. "If I try to exercise these rights…"

"If you become CEO or president," Neal clarifies, finding the details in Section 2D.

"If I try that," Vivian continues, "the other board members are allowed to by new stock at some lower price, and I go from owning 55 percent of the company to much less, right?"

"Around 20 percent," Neal ballparks, adding up the existing shares and the ones in the new options in his head.

"Some of the board members are concerned about your recent behavior and believe that the possibility of you taking an active ownership role in the bank would be inappropriate," Tinsely says.

"A possibility that would occur in five years, assuming that my Grandfather dies within those five years," Vivian says.

"Yes."

"And when are they voting on this?" she asks.

"In three days. Again, Vivian dear, I can't advise you in this matter. Really, I can only suggest that you consult independent legal counsel."

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

Tinsley shoots Neal a warning look before leaving.

Vivian turns to Neal with a smirk, "I think my bank is scared of me."

Neal grins back, "Absolutely terrified. Five years in advance."

She laughs outright at that, "Can you imagine? Me owning bank."

"I wouldn't keep my money in a bank you own," Neal teases.

"Well, I wouldn't hire you to work in my bank," she retorts.

"Seriously, what do you want to do about this?" he hands her the motion. "I'm not sure I trust Tinsley."

"He's completely loyal to the bank and to my grandfather. He doesn't really care about me, but I can almost never get him to admit it," she smiles slightly. Again with the cynicism. "I'm not going to do anything. My grandfather has Alzheimer's, but physically he's fine. He could live for twenty years."

"Well, I still have some paperwork to finish, if you're okay hanging out here for a bit longer. We can pick up something to make for dinner on the way home. Do you like _Cacio e Pepe_?"

"I love it."

Peter calls Neal over to discuss a few of the details in his statement about his undercover transaction with Simon, so Neal leaves Vivian at his desk. As they finish up, Peter gets a call from Simon's attorney that he's been held up in court and will be fifteen minutes late.

Downstairs, he doesn't see Vivian anywhere. Great. Maybe she's just in the bathroom. He walks into the lobby, but stops when he heard voices in the small reception area that leads to the restrooms.

"I don't even know who you are." Neal recognizes Simon's voice.

"I'm still me," Vivian replies.

"Right, _Vivian Bloom._"

"I told you there were things I couldn't tell you." Neal winces. He's tried that line and it never works.

"Like you being sixteen? Is this even legal?" Simon asks.

"Of course it is," Vivian insists. Oh, God. Neal doesn't want to think about t _that. _There is something about being a parent that makes all the aphorisms about eavesdropping he's ever heard Mozzie quote suddenly ring true.

"I know this is hard to deal with," Vivian continues, "but is Lily okay?"

"She's holding up."

"Is she going to tell the FBI?"

"No," Simon says.

"Okay. Then I need to talk to your uncle."

"He's off the case," Simon protests.

"He's still pulling strings. He wants you to pin it all on me, right?"

Simon doesn't reply.

After a minute, Vivian continues, "I just need five minutes."

"Why?"

"You have to trust me, Simon."

"Right," he scoffs.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't care about Lily," she insists.

"I'll call him tonight," Simon agrees.

Neal slips back into the office ahead of the two of them. Somehow Lily Wells, the fifteen-year-old who wants to run away from her parents, is the center of all of this. But what does Lily know? If it has anything to do with the Nazi radio Vivian stole, if a teenage daughter of an assistant U.S. attorney knows something that could reveal the treasure he and Mozzie have stashed in a warehouse, then Neal is in trouble. He needs to figure out what Vivian knows. For his sake and hers.

* * *

June knocks on the apartment's door as Vivian and Neal are unpacking the groceries.

"I had the staff open up the spare room." June says, guiding Vivian towards the door near the table. Vivian has a mental image of footmen in powdered wigs lifting sheets off of furniture. June leads her around the corner from the bathroom and opens a door. For NYC, it's a huge bedroom with a small sitting area in front of her and a full-sized bed in the back corner.

"It doesn't open to either of the terraces, but there's French balcony here," June opens a door on the south wall. "And the closet is through there," she gestures across the room to a door on the back wall. "I had the other dresses I showed you this morning brought up. I bought quite a few before I realized they weren't Alisha's style."

Vivian nods, taking everything in. The room is mostly done in neutrals and the dark wood of the antique furniture against the crisp white curtain and bedspread gives it an elegant, sophisticated look.

"I thought you might need a desk, so I had one brought up from downstairs," June continues. "I didn't change anything else. I thought I'd wait and see what you liked."

"It's perfect," Vivian says. It's too much. It's like June thinks she's staying here but that's impossible.

"Well, you let me know if you need anything. We're all just so thrilled to have you here," June piles on.

"Thanks," she manages to say.

June says she'll leave her and Neal to their dinner, and leaves via a door on the far side of the bed that leads to the sunroom and the rest of the main house.

Vivian sets her bags on one of the chairs. Tinsley let her and an associate stop in at a department store during lunch so Vivian could buy a couple of shirts and some underwear. She's sure she's horridly ungrateful, but it really would be easier just to stay on the couch.

An unfamiliar voice stops her in the hallway, door still ajar.

"Offspring Neal? Actual, biological, physiological…"

"You talked to June," Neals voice cuts in.

"And you told June before me!" the stranger protests.

"June guessed," Neal explains.

"Still, _mon frère_, you should have called," the stranger sounds hurt.

"I know Moz. I've just been...processing."

"You really didn't know?" the stranger—Moz?—asks.

"I never saw this one coming," Neal admits.

"Does she know about…" the stranger's voice drops and Vivian isn't sure if he finishes his sentence or not.

Neal's voice drops to a whisper as well, but she hears something like "I'll talk to her."

"What about Lolana?"

"Not now."

Vivian decides she's not learning anything else useful, so she opens the door.

"Do you need any—hello," she says as if she's just now noticing the stranger. He's older and shorter and balder than she expected.

"Moz, this is Vivian. Vivian meet Mozzie; he's an associate of mine."

"A pleasure," Mozzie bows over her hand and Vivian decides he's clearly another con man.

"Staying for dinner, Moz?" Neal asks as he heats water for the pasta.

Mozzie agrees and Vivian helps by grating pecorino with Neal's microplane. Mozzie chooses the wine. It ought to be awkward, but Mozzie's ability to talk about the weirdest topics helps. He's a funny sort of person, but Vivian sort of likes him, in spite of his crazy conspiracy talk.

"I've been wondering how exactly you got away from boarding school," Neal asks partway thought dinner, heading off an argument over the moon landing. Seriously, Vivian has met actual astronauts. They can't all be lying.

"It wasn't that hard," she begins. "I called a car service, booked a ticket to New York, and then I spoofed a Louisville number with my cell and pretended to be a legal secretary. I told the school office the car was taking me to the airport and there was an e-ticket to Louisville booked."

"But what did you tell these trustees?" Mozzie asks.

"That was the fun part. I know how the school works, so I called Tinsley pretending to be a member of the endowment board and suggested that a contribution to the building fund could smooth over my unfortunate expulsion. I just had to get the accent right so he didn't recognize my voice."

"But what happened when the school got the donation?" Neal asks

"I faxed Tinsley-Blythe a change of address form the next day, with a mailbox I'd opened in Connecticut," Vivian admits.

"Netting you your freedom and the cash. Bravo!" Mozzie says.

"I assume they want it back with the rest of your trust fund?" Neal asks. He doesn't look quite so approving.

"Yeah, they're calling it all an accounting error. They're worried about the stock price," she grins, but Neal doesn't grin back. Apparently her lawyers' antics aren't as funny to him as they were this afternoon.

"And how did you get expelled in the first place?" Neal asks.

"I got caught on one of the teacher's computers, altering a term paper grade," Vivian admits. "Not mine. A's and B's are perfectly inconspicuous. And really, the girl who paid me to do it only got a warning."

"So unjust," Mozzie sympathizes. Vivian decides she really does like him after all.

The bald man leaves once Neal starts washing up. Vivian offers to dry, amused at how skillfully Mozzie avoided so much as lifting a finger to help.

"There's one other thing I was wondering," Neal asks casually as he hands her a rinsed plate.

"Yeah?"

"What did you want the radio for?"

She almost drops the plate. So this is what he wants. She's so stupid. He must have been planning this at dinner, letting his friend Mozzie flatter her about how clever she was in getting away from school.

"What radio?" she says coldly.

"Vivian, this is important. You don't know what you're getting mixed up with."

"What is it you think I'm mixed up with?" she asks.

"I can't explain it all. It's too dangerous for you to know." Of course, he'd say that. "I'm not going to tell the FBI."

"You arrested me!" she protests.

"I didn't have a choice," Neal argues. "Just, who else knows about the radio?"

She stares at him, "I don't know what…"

"Stop," he interrupts her. She can't think of another way to deflect him, so she plays the only card she has.

"Maybe I should go."

He looks stricken. He's an amazing actor, she tells herself.

"No…I…stay."

She takes a wineglass out of his hand and dries it thoroughly, not looking at him.

"The FBI doesn't have anything tying you to that heist," he says. "It's just that I…" he looks behind them, towards the table and then back and the dishwater.

"Why don't we just forget I asked," he says finally, smiling at her again.

"Alright," she tries to grin back. If he's not going to tell her why he wants to know, she's not going to tell him.

They try to act like everything is fine for an hour or so, until Vivian finally decides it's late enough for her to turn in. Maybe having this ostentatious room of her own is a good thing after all.

* * *

A/N: I know, I know. Trust is hard, isn't it? Also, Cacio e Pepe is pasta with cheese and pepper. Simple, but absolutely amazing.


End file.
